


This Is How You Hold

by LayALioness



Series: Nothing Like Old Times [1]
Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellamy is john connor, Clarke is basically cameron, do with that what u will - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 20:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4193412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Clarke killed some guy and stuffed him in the trunk,” Jasper says delightedly.</p><p>Clarke ignores him, turning to Bellamy. “He was following us,” she explains. “A threat.”</p><p>“Your cousin’s dark, dude,” Jasper whispers loud enough for everyone to hear.</p><p>“Yeah,” Bellamy nods, trying to backtrack. Sometimes he wishes she was actually better at making things up. “She’s a…closeted Goth.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is How You Hold

**Author's Note:**

> This is the result of my recent obsession with tscc and binge watching jameron videos on youtube, so you're welcome basically.
> 
> Also I've made a playlist for this series because 8tracks rules me when ao3 is on break:  
> http://8tracks.com/tierannasaurusrex/you-explained-the-infinite

Bellamy moves to Red Valley when he’s sixteen, because his mother has a nightmare.

His mother has a lot of nightmares, these days. They move a lot, too.

He meets Clarke two days later. She sits next to him in some math class he’s probably going to fail. She asks his name, and says hers, and he tries not to seem as awkward as he feels. Clarke’s gorgeous, with golden curls and blue eyes and an easy smile. It’s all he can do not to stare, really, which makes him feel like a creep.

Then she starts asking about his family, which is a dangerous conversation, so he makes some shoddy excuse and runs like the coward he is.

When he gets home, his mom asks if he met any pretty girls at school. He says no and shrugs it off, and she leaves it alone.

Octavia scoffs from the kitchen table—she’s recently twelve, and a know-it-all. “Liar,” she smirks.

“Shut up,” Bellamy says fondly, and messes up her hair.

The next time he sees Clarke, she takes six bullets to the solar plexus before he dives out a window.

He’s crouching behind some football player’s Hummer in the parking lot when she finds him, mowing over the gun-toting substitute teacher in the process. She opens the door to her truck like it’s no big deal that she’s just been shot and possibly murdered a man.

“Come with me if you want to live,” she orders, and he pretty much knows what that means at this point, but he still can’t help the confusion.

She’s sixteen, or looks it, five-foot-nothing, a little over a hundred pounds, and _blonde_ for Christ’s sake—not exactly like the Machines his mom’s been running from his whole life.

So he’s not really surprised when they pull over at a gas station and she calmly takes off her shirt before digging the slugs out of her ribcage—or the metal, where her ribcage should be—but he still stares like an idiot, because _this cannot be happening_.

It’s not his first encounter with a Machine, but it’s definitely his first with one he’d been considering asking out on a date.

So he takes her home, because what else is there to do with her? She says she was sent from the future—by _him_ , which is just fucking bizarre, but—to protect the Blake’s. That Judgement Day wasn’t prevented, just postponed, and his mom eats it up of course because after all she’s been pretty much waiting for this to happen. She wants to head to the mountains in Colorado next, somewhere remote, maybe a ski lodge.

But Octavia’s twelve and still in the fifth grade, and Bellamy’s pretty sure he’s about to fail his sophomore year again, and he sort of _is_ the future leader of mankind, apparently, so. He says they’re not running, anymore.

They’ll hunt Skynet, and shut it down before it begins.

Clarke looks at him, and he knows she’s a Machine so she can’t technically _feel_ pride, but. She’s grinning at him, barely, like he’s just met all her expectations. He finds himself wanting to impress her, which pisses him off. She still lied. She still smiled and flirted and none of it was real, and maybe he shouldn’t feel so petulant about that, but.

She lied.

“How do we know we can trust you?” Aurora demands, still eyeing Clarke skeptically. Clarke, for her part, seems mostly unimpressed by it all.

“Bellamy Blake sent me,” she says. “To protect you. I am following his orders.”

“So you’ll do what he says?” Aurora asks. Bellamy rubs at his neck, a little uncomfortable with the idea of ordering the murder-bot around.

“Not this Bellamy,” Clarke says, like it’s obvious. “He’s not my Bellamy yet.”

She leads them to Los Angeles, along with Marcus, who might be Bellamy’s uncle but at this point anything goes. He’s a thief, which isn’t exactly ideal, and he’s also kind of an asshole. They hate each other pretty instantly, while Octavia putters about in the background dropping Marcus’s wallet in the toilet or his clothes in the freezer in the hopes it’ll scare him off. Aurora researches blueprints and nuclear power sources and tries not to lose her patience with them. Clarke just sort of observes, clearly _above_ it all, and confused by their behavior.

She doesn’t understand picking fights that don’t end in death. Bellamy kind of agrees with her, to be honest.

She also takes to walking around half-naked, which. Well he’s not going to _complain_ about it, and Octavia thinks it’s hilarious, while Aurora tries very hard not to mother their newly adopted cyborg. Marcus does his best not to associate with any of them, which is fine. Strangely, Clarke’s cell is on his speed dial, even though Bellamy’s never actually seen the two interact in person.

Then she leads them to an abandoned lot, and there’s some weird lightning and everything glows blue and smells like burned rubber for a second. Then he blacks out.

When he comes to, he’s naked, and the rest of them are there too—Aurora, Octavia, Marcus and Clarke. They’re all completely naked, which is a little weird and definitely _mortifying_. They’re still in the middle of nowhere, but it looks different. There are some abandoned construction vehicles nearby, and some billboards that hadn’t been there before.

“Where are we?” Aurora asks.

“Same where,” Clarke answers, blunt as ever. “Different when.” She points to the billboard, which has the date scrawled over in black. _October, 2007_.

2007\. Eight years in the future. Comparatively speaking, it’s not the strangest thing he’s ever lived through, but. It’s a lot to swallow.

Octavia is positively _thrilled_. He tries to let that be enough.

They enroll in a new high school, and pretend to be cousins which is only a little weird since he’s still perpetually attracted to her. He tries to play it off as familial annoyance instead, and is pretty sure he succeeds.

He’s skipping English (his last English class gave him mild PTSD, after all) when Roma finds him. She’s pretty, a different pretty than Clarke; all long limbs and willowy body. She has thick, dark hair and a narrow face and she’s blowing smoke out her nostrils when she asks if he wants to buy her lunch.

She’s the quintessential _bad girl_ , which suits him just fine because even without the Machine war thing, Bellamy’s pretty much every parent’s worst nightmare. Definitely not Prom-date material.

He takes Roma home too, because clearly he has a problem. Aurora seems to agree—she walks in, takes one look at Roma, and pulls him aside to _talk_.

“ _What do you think you’re_ doing _?_ ” she hisses. Bellamy shrugs out of her grip, annoyed and a little embarrassed because the walls are thin so he knows Roma can hear them.

“Living my life,” he replies shortly, leading Roma upstairs so they can make out in his room.

She asks about his family too, and he gives some vague answers. She nods in understanding. “My parents are freaks,” she confesses.

“Yours too?” Bellamy snorts, and maybe it’s a dick thing to say, but it makes her laugh, so.

Clarke pokes her head in while Roma’s sleeping but he’s still awake, rereading _Julius Caesar_.

“There are two hundred and six bones in your body,” she says abruptly. “None are made of metal. Be careful with them.” Then she leaves, and he’s just as bewildered as he always is when it comes to Clarke.

In the morning he wakes to Roma sneaking out the window. She blows him a kiss before dropping, and he heads downstairs with a grin. Octavia and Clarke are sitting at the kitchen table, and Octavia’s doing something intricate to Clarke’s eyelids with gel liner.

“Thought you’d be able to do that yourself,” Bellamy muses, pouring a bowl of cereal.

“I can,” Clarke responds, careful not to nudge Octavia’s hand. “But it is nice, sometimes, to have help.”

Bellamy tries not to stare at Clarke, most of the time, or at least not obviously. But then she says something like that, and it makes not-staring pretty fucking hard. She’s been experimenting with teen-girl fashion lately; she still wears mostly leather jackets and arm-sleeves, but she also has a skirt made of gold sequins that looks like water when she moves, and a dress of green lace. Not that he’s noticed, or anything. He’s observant, that’s all.

“Right,” he says. “Well, uh. You look nice.”

Octavia eyes him curiously, probably going over all his previous interactions with Clarke, and coming to all the right conclusions.

Bellamy inhales his breakfast and clears his throat. “C’mon, princess, beauty time’s over—we’re gonna be late.”

This is another thing he does; _princess_. It started on that second day, at the gas station. She’d asked him to grab her a seltzer water while she filled the tank, and he’d snorted, hollowed out from just nearly dying, and being rescued by a robot. “Get it yourself, princess,” he’d growled. But then she’d turned to him, big eyes strange and confused, and he’d had to tell her the stories—pretty girls locked up in towers or asleep in castles, guarded by dragons and rescued by knights.

“I think I would be more the dragon,” she’d mused. “I am the guard. You can be the princess.” He hadn’t even bothered arguing.

Clarke hops obediently up from the table, following him out to Marcus’s Ford. He’s started just leaving the keys up in the tire well, since Clarke would end up hotwiring it anyway if he didn’t.

He ends up ditching, most of the time, to hang out with Roma or smoke in the parking lot. Clarke takes impeccable notes and lets him copy her homework. She befriends the school librarian, Wick, which is only a little strange for her. He isn’t sure what it says about him that it makes him jealous. He tries not to think about it.

He just doesn’t like the idea of his family’s body guard spending her free time with some charismatic stranger in a wheelchair.

It’s pathetic, he knows. He’s also pretty sure she knows, at least a little. Clarke’s pretty oblivious when it comes to human emotions, but she understands a lot more than you’d think.

He still sneaks Roma into the safe house, even though he’s pretty sure everyone already knows. Octavia just makes a face whenever she finds one of Roma’s sweaters in his room. Clarke looks her usual mix of apathetic and confused, with a hint of disappointment that makes his stomach churn. His mother ignores Roma altogether, but at least she’s not fighting him on it anymore. Marcus disappears for a few days at a time, and Bellamy thinks about holding a party to celebrate.

He’s walking outside, heading for a milk run to the grocery store, when he hears something from the barn by the house. He grips the knife Clarke gave him, and stalks over, pressing an eye to the gap in the splintering doors.

It’s Clarke, he can tell by her hair, and he’s pretty sure the other girl is Roma even though he can’t see her face. Because whoever she is, she and Clarke are kissing, with her hands in those curls and Clarke’s arms relaxed at her sides like she doesn’t know what to do with them.

Bellamy watches for a moment before realizing that’s kind of creepy, and then he debates letting them know he’s there, or just slinking off.

(He sneaks away, because who is he kidding? He’s a coward through and through.)

He does ask Clarke about it that night, though. They’re doing their thing, where she lies on the right side of his mattress, her head at his feet while he lays on the left side, and they stare up through the skylight in his ceiling. He’d tried pointing out the constellations for her the first night, but she’d just cut him off saying, “I know. You told me.” “I did?” “You will.”

“So,” he hesitates. He’s still not really sure if he should be angry or not—he’s pretty sure whatever he and Roma doing, it’s definitely less than _dating_ , but. “I saw you and Roma in the barn.”

Clarke doesn’t seem even a little surprised, but then she never really does, so he’s not the best at gauging her reactions. “I saw you do it the other day,” she explains nonchalantly. “It looked nice. I wanted to try.”

Bellamy clears his throat, rapidly approaching dangerous territory. He presses on, anyway. “And, uh. What did you think?”

Clarke shrugs, but since she’s laying down the movement’s warped a little. “It was nice,” she decides. “It was warmer than I thought,” she pauses. “And softer.”

“Oh,” Bellamy says, and there’s no way to mask the strain in his voice so he doesn’t even try. “Cool.”

She’s never there when he wakes up in the mornings. Sometimes he finds Roma instead, and he never asks her about kissing Clarke in the barn. He’s pretty sure that if Clarke had come up to him asking to try out kissing, he’d have said yes too.

They pull Roma out of the river, two weeks later. She’s been beaten to death, and then stabbed, and Bellamy hates that his first thought is _Clarke did it_. He’s seen her kill without batting an eyelash, but.

Roma has defensive wounds, and bruised knuckles. She put up a fight. Her death had been sloppy and unprofessional, two things that Clarke could never be.

She hands him a pamphlet about mourning, without a word.

Octavia says, “I may not have liked her, but she didn’t deserve to _die_.”

It’s the best people like them have to offer. He’d liked Roma, she’d been a nice distraction, and probably a complex individual if he’d ever really tried to get to know her. But he hadn’t, because in the end his mother was right; he doesn’t have time for girls, or romance. He’s not sure he has much time left, at all.

Marcus reappears long enough to tell them another Machine is in the city, and it’s looking for them. It’d managed to bang him up pretty bad before he’d slipped away, back to the safe house. Clarke cleans and bandages his wounds with more care than Bellamy’s seen her handle anything.

He’d managed to snap a picture of the Terminator on his phone—it’s blurry, and pixelated, but Bellamy recognizes the face pretty quickly, and he knows Clarke does too.

It’s their substitute teacher, Cage Wallace.

They’re as careful as they can be, and Clarke barely ever leaves his side anymore, which is both terrible and amazing—terrible because he’s sort of bitter about the total lack of privacy, and amazing because when she’s not focused on taking out a threat or fighting a war, Clarke is actually pretty fun to hang out with.

As fun as something like her can be, that is. This is what he has to tell himself, pretty constantly and every day; she’s just a Machine. She may look like a girl, and let Octavia French braid her hair and paint her nails purple, and she may stick her feet out the window whenever she sat shotgun, and she may crack a few puns so terrible Bellamy actually _cries_ , but.

Ultimately, she’s a Machine. She’d told him, herself. _You need to understand how this works._

Bellamy had stared back, confused. _How what works?_

_This body. This chip. This software is programmed to terminate humans. This hardware is programmed to kill you._

Bellamy licked his lips, waiting for the punchline. Sometimes Clarke told really dark jokes. But he had the feeling this wasn’t one of them. _But not you_ , he argued. _You’re different._

 _Now I am,_ Clarke agreed. _But what was there is still there. Will always be there. You need to know that._

They haven’t talked about it since, and Bellamy does his best not to think about it. He’s pretty sure by now that Clarke’s his best friend, and it’s a little depressing to know his best friend, deep down, maybe wants to kill him.

 “Clarke,” he asks one night, finally letting the words out. And it may have something to do with the bottle of Southern Comfort they’re nursing on the barn roof, but he likes to think he would have gotten around to asking _eventually_. “What are you to future Bellamy?”

Clarke blinks up at the sky. “I am a soldier in the Resistance,” she says.

“No,” Bellamy shakes his head, smiling because she’s _so oblivious._ “Like, how do we meet?”

“I try to kill you,” Clarke chirps.

Bellamy swallows, mouth suddenly dry. “But you don’t,” he clarifies, because he needs to hear it.

“I don’t,” Clarke agrees. “You challenge me to a game of Chess,” she explains, turning to look at him with something bordering on _awe_ , which. He is _not_ equipped to handle that. “You win.”

“I beat you at Chess,” he repeats. He’s played against her a few times by now, and she always destroys him. She seems to take a sort of demented pleasure in it, and now he knows why.

Clarke shrugs amiably. “You get better,” she assures him.

“Sure,” he agrees because if she’s said it, it’s probably true. Maybe. She is a good liar, still, but he likes to think she doesn’t lie so much to him anymore. “But you’re more than just some soldier,” he presses. “Right? I mean, I told you about the stars—do I do that with everyone, or something?” He can’t really see himself being that kind of general.

Truthfully, he can’t see himself as _any_ type of general, but. Apparently the world ends in four years, and he can’t really see that either. Maybe he just has a shitty imagination.

Clarke glances down so that her hair covers her face, almost like she’s feeling _bashful_ , which is new. “No,” she admits. “As far as I know, you do this only with me.” It feels like a confession, and so he treats it as such, letting the quiet wash over them nicely.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when he wakes up he’s in his bed, and she’s gone again.

She asks him to take her to an art museum. He’s pretty used to her strange requests by now, so he only shrugs and agrees to drive. She spends three hours drifting along the impressionists, soaking in the art.

On the way back, she makes him stop at a hardware store, where she buys paints and brushes and an easel. They turn her room into a modest art studio. She’s pretty good—what she lacks in technique she makes up for with passion, and he wonders what that might mean.

“Machines can’t make art,” Marcus scoffs at the beginning. But now one of her paintings hangs on his bedroom wall.

Bellamy makes a new friend at school. His name is Jasper, and he sort of forces himself on him, and Clarke by default. Bellamy’s ninety percent sure Jasper only befriends him so he can get close to Clarke, but. He’s a nice kid, and Clarke seems amused by him, so he guesses he’ll let him stay.

He walks out to find Jasper chatting with Clarke by some luxury sports car he doesn’t recognize. “Hey,” he calls. “My mom said we gotta get home right now. Whose car?”

“Clarke killed some guy and stuffed him in the trunk,” Jasper says delightedly.

Clarke ignores him, turning to Bellamy. “He was following us,” she explains. “A threat.”

“Your cousin’s dark, dude,” Jasper whispers loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Yeah,” Bellamy nods, trying to backtrack. Sometimes he wishes she was actually _better_ at making things up. “She’s a…closeted Goth.”

“Cool,” Jasper decides. “You’ll love The Smiths.”

“I cannot love,” Clarke shrugs. Jasper looks smitten.

“You can’t just say shit like that,” Bellamy says hotly on the ride home. Clarke glances over at him mildly.

“Like what?”

“Like, killing someone and putting them in the trunk of a car,” he says, exasperated. He’s beginning to think that even if Skynet doesn’t get them, Clarke might get herself locked up in an asylum.

“You killed someone today?” Octavia asks from the backseat. Bellamy frowns; he’d forgotten she was there.

“He was a threat,” Clarke sighs. “It was the only alternative.”

“No, I get it,” Octavia nods understandingly. Bellamy scowls at her in the rearview mirror.

“No, you don’t get it,” he growls. “No murder before you’re at least eighteen.”

“But then I’ll get tried as an adult,” Octavia points out. Clarke nods in agreement.

None of them see the cement truck coming, until it’s barreling into the passenger side of the Ford. He’s dimly aware of someone wrenching his door from its hinges, before lifting him out of the seat. He can hear Octavia whimpering, and he slurs out her name. He thinks, _Clarke Clarke Clarke Clarke_ , and fades out completely.

Bellamy drifts in and out of consciousness, before finally waking up in some sort of empty warehouse made of concrete. There aren’t any windows, so he can’t tell what time it is, and his head has been freshly bandaged.

He’s not tied or chained or duct taped. All in all, it seems like a pretty shitty kidnapping job. He strolls over to the door.

There’s a Machine with the front key on a chain around its neck. It doesn’t respond to movement or sound, looking more like a wax doll than anything, but Bellamy’s still careful when stealing the key. He manages to get the docking gate open before the alarms go off.

Aurora is driving the truck that comes speeding in, while Clarke hangs with one arm from the side. She hops off to kick at the Machine, now awake and vicious, while Bellamy makes a run for his mom.

She swings the truck around and he slides in. Clarke hops up, hooking an arm through the open window. The other Machine got a few hits in on her face, and Bellamy can see the gray metal peeking from torn skin under her eye and nose, but it’s already healing. She looks stunning, not at all like the victim of a major car accident that morning.

“What happened?” Bellamy asks, voice hoarse. He’s never seen Clarke look so sorry.

“Octavia was hurt,” she says softly. “I had to keep her wound pressured, and could not stop them taking you.”

Bellamy has sort of always wanted to kiss Clarke—recently, he’s _really_ wanted to kiss her—but the need has never burned quite as bright as now.

“Don’t ever apologize for that,” he demands, and it’s probably the harshest he’s ever spoken to her. “If it ever comes down to me or O, pick O _every time_.” Clake gives a business like nod. He goes to open the door so she can actually slide in, but then she’s wrenched from his view.

He screams her name, and Aurora screams his, and then her arms bind around him as he tries to hop out of the truck. It’s not really a fair fight; he can’t fight his _mom_. He can hear the sounds of metal on metal, and something getting kicked, and he _prays_ Clarke is the one doing the kicking.

“We have to help her,” he begs. “She saved me— _she saves me!_ ”

Aurora looks at him with sympathy. Clarke appears at the hood of the truck. She’s run ragged, and peeling apart at the seams—she’s never looked more Machine—but Bellamy sighs in relief, anyway. He rushes out of the truck, and is about to pull her into his arms when she speaks.

“Bellamy Blake,” she declares, voice going tinny. “You must be terminated.”

Bellamy feels his heart sink down to his ankles. He takes a step back, and she takes one forward, fist clenched menacingly. Aurora restarts the truck.

He tries to climb back inside, but Clarke is too fast, and so he takes off running, with her just behind. He knows she’s fast, has seen her in action, but he’s never really been able to fully appreciate her power until it’s aimed at him.

She’s nearly caught up when Aurora roars in, pinning Clarke’s body against the grille of a Humvee. She doesn’t cry out, just stares at Bellamy through the windshield. And then he’s scrambling down the hood, pocketknife in hand—the one she gave him.

“Bellamy no,” she says as he peels back the skin at the back of her skull. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Actually,” Bellamy grits out, feeling sick. “I do; you showed me.”

“You’re not doing the right thing,” she argues. “This is not the right thing. I’m better now; I ran a test. I’m fine, everything’s perfect.”

“I wish I could believe you,” Bellamy whispers. He wishes she’d stop talking, stop using Clarke’s voice. She sounds panicked, which isn’t helping. He didn’t know Clarke could feel panicked.

“So believe me,” she whispers back. “Bellamy, please—I don’t want to go. Please, I don’t want to go, don’t send me away, I don’t want to go!”

His hand stutters at the screw of her chip. Her throat sounds wet and thick, and raw. She sounds like she’s said the words before, and he wonders what future him would respond with. He can’t think of anything.

“Bellamy I’m fine,” she repeats. “I ran a test, everything’s better. I’m sorry for earlier, but you have to know that wasn’t me—Bellamy please.”

Aurora calls his name, shouting for him to finish it. He wonders how long she’s been shouting—he’s only heard Clarke.

“Bellamy I love you,” Clarke pleads. “And you love me. Please don’t make me go.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and then pulls the chip from her head. Her body goes limp between the cars.

She’d taught them how to destroy the endoskeletons of her kind, and so they use that to burn her body. It’s Aurora and Marcus and Octavia, and him. They lay Clarke out in an old topless Deville, and he takes a moment to brush her hair out so it just looks like she’s sleeping.

She’s never slept before, he knows that. She asked once what it was like to dream. “Everyone’s dreams are different,” he’d shrugged. He hated when she asked those questions, all philosophical and vague. He never knew what to tell her.

“It must be nice,” she’d decided. “To have something all your own. Something no one else would ever see, or experience.” She’d paused. “What do you dream about?”

He’d almost said, _you_ , because ever since she’d steamrolled her way into his life, she’s been a constant in the back of his mind. In his dreams, she is soft and warm and human, and sometimes they have sex. It feels a little weird in the mornings, when he has to see her at the breakfast table, but. “Different things,” he’d settled on, and she’d dropped the subject.

Now, she looks asleep, and it’s creepy. Unsettling. He doesn’t want her to be sleeping, he doesn’t want her to be dead. And then he gets the idea, and it’s so, _so_ stupid, and Clarke would give him that look like he’s an idiot, and his mom will probably fight him on it, but.

Suddenly he’s tossing the flare away and holding a gun on Marcus, on _his mother_ , as he puts Clarke’s mind back together.

She wakes up in one hundred and twenty seconds, just like he knew she would. He keeps the gun trained between them just in case. She looks up at him in question.

“Are you here to kill me, Bell?” she asks. She’s used the nickname before, but usually when referring to his future self. He stares back at her and shakes his head.

“You here to kill me?” he asks.

“You know I’m not,” Clarke answers, sounding annoyed that he’s asked. Across the car, Marcus is holding Aurora tensely by the shoulders, while Octavia watches, eyes hard.

His hand doesn’t shake as he hands Clarke the gun. “Promise.”

She takes it, holding it in her hand as if testing the weight, and looks back at him for a long moment. Long enough to make him nervous. Finally, she hands the gun back. “Promise,” she nods, and the air relaxes between them.

He pulls her out, and then clutches her to him, wondering how he’s managed to get in so deep with a girl who’s just skin stretched over metal.

(But she’s more than that, she is, he’s known it since she turned to him and said, “I have sensation. I can feel. I wouldn’t be worth much if I couldn’t feel.”)

She doesn’t hug him back, which is fine—she probably doesn’t understand what a hug is, anyway. He just needs to feel the steady weight of her in his arms, the puff of her breath on his shoulder. He puts his nose in her hair and breathes in. She smells like blood and motor oil and metal. He doesn’t want to ever let go.

Eventually a throat clears, and he pulls away, and then Octavia is pulling her in just as fiercely. She glares over at him.

“She saved me too,” she says, irritated. “Don’t get greedy.”

After, Aurora still tenses up whenever Clarke walks in a room, but Octavia takes to following her around. Clarke seems to like the company, so Bellamy doesn’t bother questioning it. She stops going to his room at night to look at the stars. Stops speaking on their rides to and from school, stops asking her meaningless questions. He tries to start the conversation a couple of times, but it always dies out fairly quickly because he’s bad at it; she’s always been the blunt one, the kick starter for their talks. And now she’s eerily silent, but only around him, which.

Well, he’s kind of bitter about it.

He walks out to the parking lot after school to find her laughing at something Jasper’s said. _Laughing_ , and he knows it’s probably not real, that she can fake things like that, but it still makes him clench his fists.

“Let’s go,” he growls. He doesn’t acknowledge Jasper at all, which he feels kind of bad about when he sees Jasper’s face fall, but. He’s angry, and whatever he says will probably be mean, so he keeps his mouth shut.

“Wick says I should not consider suicide,” Clarke announces, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Bellamy nearly swerves off the road.

“Wick’s right,” he says, eyeing her. “Were you considering suicide?”

“I am,” she nods. “I’m broken. My chip is damaged.”

Bellamy grips the steering wheel so tight his knuckles flash white. “You’re fine,” he declares. “I’ll fix you.”

Clarke turns to him with a smile, soft enough he knows it’s real. “You might not always be able to,” she warns. “I tried to kill you. I might try again.”

“We’ll fix you,” he argues, adamant. He didn’t even think Machines _could_ consider suicide. It makes his chest ache. “I’ll fix you.”

Clarke turns, still smiling, to the window. She’s quiet the rest of the ride home, and heads upstairs to paint.

He finds her in the barn that night. She’s clutching something like a pocket watch, and a bottle of Southern Comfort, and she looks adorably nervous. It’s a new look for her, and he likes it.

“What are you up to?” he asks, grinning.

“Making something,” she explains, holding out the watch. “For you.”

Bellamy feels a rush of warmth and takes the present. “What is it?” He flicks the cover open to reveal three red buttons and some wiring inside. So, not a watch.

“I am not capable of self-termination,” Clarke says. “I cannot kill myself. But you can.”

Bellamy stares from her back to the watch, to the kill switch in his hand. “No.” Clarke ignores him.

“I’ve put a small explosive in my skull, by my chip. It’s not much, but it’ll be enough. If I ever go bad again,” she trails off, catching his eye and hers flash crimson. _She’s just a Machine_. “I want it to be you,” she whispers.

 _She’s just a Machine_ , he tells himself. And then, _you’re a goddamned liar._

He slips the watch around his neck, folding it in his shirt. It lands pressed against his heart, and he hates it. He reaches out a palm to the side of her face. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he swears. The words mean more than that—the first ones he said to Octavia—the ones he said to his mom when he was a kid and she was crying but he didn’t understand why.

Clarke lays a hand over his wrist and leans into his touch—this is something he’s learned gradually, that she likes being touched. _I can feel._ It probably messes him up more than her going topless.

“You care,” she says like it’s a disappointment. “You do these things, Bellamy. And this will be what kills you, in the end.” She speaks it like a prophecy, and he knows it could be. He shrugs.

“We’ll see.” He swipes the bottle of whiskey in one hand, and hers in the other. They climb the pear tree and clamber up on the roof. Well, he clambers. She slides on as gracefully as she does everything else.

Three shots in, and he turns to her. “Do you love future Bellamy more than me-Bellamy?” he wonders. He’s been wondering that for a long time.

Clarke hums, considering. “I love Bellamy,” she decides. “In all forms. You are different, but you are him.”

“Why did I send you here?” he asks, and he’s been wondering that for a long time too. How could he, in any form, send Clarke away from him? He wonders if future him gets brain damage.

“To protect you,” she says. “And Aurora and Octavia.”

He smirks. “Not Marcus?”

“No,” she smirks back. “You dislike him.”

Bellamy shrugs; he’s not going to deny it. “He’s a dick.”

“He is scared,” Clarke explains. “And he should be. Everyone should be.”

“You’re not scared,” Bellamy points out. Clarke turns back to him, and in the moonlight her skin glows almost silver, her hair a pale gold. She’s never looked more inhuman, even with all her endoskeleton showing and eyes bright red.

“I’m a Machine,” she says softly. “I cannot feel fear.”

But he remembers her, right before he took her chip. He remembers her eyes, wide and wet and terrified. He remembers her pleading, voice like a little girl. And he thinks maybe she feels more than even she knows.

Her hand begins twitching, an aftershock of the damage to her chip. She scoops up a sparrow with a broken wing, and he watches. She’s being so gentle, but then her hand seizes and there’s the snap of bone, and the bird lays dead in her hands. She glares down at her hand like it’s betrayed her.

“I can fix you,” Bellamy offers, gesturing to her hand. “If you want.” Clarke nods and follows him to the barn, and watches while he collects up his tools.

He peels the skin of her wrist gently, though he know she can’t feel pain. Her fingers twitch in response, and since he only needs one hand to work the screwdriver, he lays the other over hers. In comfort, or something. She winds her fingers through his, and he tries not to make it a big deal. Comfort. From a friend, which is what she is, what they are.

“Aren’t you supposed to be really good at self-repair?” he teases when he’s finished. She picks at the healing skin on her arm.

“Yes,” she says honestly. “But sometimes it’s nice to have help.” He squeezes her hand before letting go, and she squeezes back.

Cage finds them, of course. It was always just a matter of time, now that they’re no longer running. He finds them, but Clarke gets there first, and she takes him out with six shotgun shells to the skull. He clips her a few times, so she’s left with some glitches.

Like when she collapses and won’t wake up. Bellamy and Marcus carry her up to her room and lay her out on the bed. Octavia holds her hand, and he can tell she’s trying not to cry because she thinks crying makes her look weak. He wishes he could convince her that it doesn’t.

He kneels on the mattress beside Clarke and stays even as the rest of them finally fall asleep and the house settles into the night. He stays and he talks to her, sometimes reads to her, sometimes strokes her hair because it feels nice and he thinks she might like it.

He’s there when she wakes up, and she looks at him blankly. He pictures her declaring he must be terminated, and shivers. “Do you know who you are?” He asks carefully.

“Of course,” she says. “I’m Harper, from Arcadia.”

Bellamy stares for a moment, wondering if this is a dream. “No,” he says slowly. “You’re Clarke. From the future. You’re a Machine.”

Clarke tips her head and scrunches her nose in confusion. It’s an incredibly human gesture, and endearing, and decidedly _not Clarke_. “I’m a what?” She pauses, glancing around. “Where am I?” she asks, turning back to him. “And who are you?”

Bellamy hopes it’s a dream.

It’s not a dream, and Clarke only answers to Harper, and she drags Octavia gleefully to thrift stores and strip malls, and she starts wearing her hair in pigtails, and chewing strawberry gum, and saying words like _rad_ and _hella_. Bellamy offers her some whiskey but she takes one sip before gagging.

“That shit’s awful,” she gasps. “How can you stand it? Ugh.”

It takes everything in him not to grab hold of her and _scream_. _This is not who you are_ , he wants to tell her. _This girl isn’t you—you make really bad, really dark jokes, and you can kill a man with one hit, and you always stick your feet out the window when I’m driving, and you taught my little sister Algebra, and you know the names of each star!_

Instead he just nods, and heads outside to the barn, and punches a hole in the wall. He gets black-out drunk and passes out on the work table, and Octavia finds him in the morning.

“Wake up, fearless leader,” she chirps. “Time to save the human race! The apocalypse waits for no one.”

He scowls at her, and the sun, and the bowl of Fruity Pebbles she’s carrying.

“She’s still her, Bell,” Octavia says softly. “Just like you’re still the Bellamy that sent her to us. She’s just a little different, is all.” She huffs. “Besides, it’s not like you can complain; you’re not exactly leader-of-the-free-world, right now, and she didn’t mope about it.”

“She’s a robot,” Bellamy mumbles around his cereal. “She can’t mope.”

Octavia rolls her eyes to the ceiling. “You two exhaust me,” she declares, and stomps back to the house.

In the end, it’s Aurora that snaps Clarke back. She’s taken, and Bellamy doesn’t know what to do, and Marcus is missing again, and Octavia’s crying in the pantry so no one will see.

Harper walks into the room, arms laden with shopping bags, and she takes one look at Bellamy’s terrified face before pausing. “What is it?”

“She’s gone.” His voice breaks on the last word, and he _sees_ the change take place in Clarke’s eyes. They go hard again, and deep blue, and he knows she’s back.

“I’ll fix it,” she promises, and then runs out.

She finds him on his bed that night. There are leaves in her hair, and her shirt’s torn in a few places, but she looks otherwise intact. “I found her,” she says, and he goes to stand. She shakes her head, pushing him back down gently. “She is in prison.” She pauses. “I need to show you something.”

“What?” Bellamy asks, impatient because his mother is out there, and alive, and they’re not doing anything about it.

Clarke moves across the room. “You’ve fixed me twice now,” she says. “This body,” she takes off her shirt and he makes a conscious effort to keep his eyes on hers. “Is a bomb,” she explains. “I’ve run tests, but I need to know just in case.” She perches herself on the opposite edge of his bed, thumbs hooking around to unclasp her bra. She tosses it away, and Bellamy’s ninety percent sure this _is_ a dream, and one he’s had before. He still doesn’t look down.

Clarke shifts to lie on her back, and glances back at him. “Get on top of me,” she says. She’s not breathless or anything, so he’s fairly sure whatever they’re doing is some clinical procedure, but. Well _he’s_ still human, so he readjusts so his crotch isn’t touching her.

She pulls out her bowie knife and hands it to him. “Here,” she draws a line down her sternum with her finger, and he only hesitates for a moment before tracing it with the knife. There isn’t much blood, and then she peels back the skin a little so he can see the machinery inside. “Reach under the breastplate,” she orders.

This isn’t exactly how he’d pictured first putting a hand inside Clarke, but. It’s surprisingly intimate, and a little weird, fingering around the cogs and clockwork, searching for some unknown malady.

“There,” Clarke gasps, and Bellamy thinks maybe he was wrong about this being clinical. He shifts himself, so he’s just barely pressed against her, and he definitely doesn’t imagine when her breath goes shallow. He’d feel smug about it if he weren’t so barely keeping himself together. “What does it feel like?” Clarke asks, whispers, voice strained. He very much wants to kiss her.

“Cold,” he says—one syllable words seem like his best bet, right now. “That’s good, right?” As far as he knows, Clarke is always cool to the touch.

“Yes,” she agrees. “That’s perfect,” and he’s pretty sure she’s not talking about her body temperature anymore. Eyes steady on hers, he pulls his hand back out, and lets it graze her skin down to her waistband.

Here he pauses, waiting for permission. She just stares back at him, almost like a dare. There’s a bit of green paint beneath her ear that she missed in the shower. He grins and presses his face to her shoulder, almost like a kiss but not so coordinated. He slips his hand inside her jeans and thumbs at her underwear.

“Bell,” she breathes sharply, and that’s all he needs to hear.

When they kiss, it’s messy and crooked and he’s at a weird angle trying to hit a spot inside her—but it’s hot and wet and perfect. He lays on top of her afterwards, face between her breasts because they’ve been practically taunting him since he met her, and now he can do this. He doesn’t worry about crushing her or restricting her breathing, or anything. She could lift him off with a finger if she wanted, but instead she’s carding through his hair and staring at the skylight. He wants to get used to this.

“I didn’t know Machines could do that,” he admits, and she smiles a little shyly.

“Neither did I.”

Bellamy sits up a little straighter. “So, in the future,” he asks, feeling awkward. “We never…?”

Clarke gives a small smile. “I belong to future Bellamy,” she says. “I am his friend. But, I am more than that to you. I do not belong to you,” She runs a finger down his jaw. “But I am yours. And you are mine.”

He knows she could just be repeating a line she heard from one of O’s rom-coms, but. She’s smiling that small smile, the real one, and her eyes are shining, and she’s naked in his bed, so he’s inclined to believe her.

“Good,” he decides, leaning down to kiss her. “I hoped so.”

In the morning, a man comes to see them. He’s middle-aged, with glasses and a cable knit sweater.

“Diana sent me,” he says, like it explains anything. “Diana Sydney. Your mother was going to meet with her, before everything happened.” He gives a vague hand wave, like Aurora being incarcerated is no big deal. Bellamy hates him on principle.

“I’m Emerson,” the man adds.

“You should leave,” Clarke declares, and she does it with her usual apathy, but something in her voice catches Bellamy by surprise. _Worry_. He hates Emerson even more.

“Who’s Diana Sydney?” he demands.

“She’s from the future,” Emerson explains. “She’s here to stop Skynet, just like you. She has one of them, too,” he gestures at Clarke, surprisingly unimpressed. Clarke looks offended.

“There are no others like me,” she declares. Emerson snorts and turns to Bellamy with an eye roll.

“Bit of an ego on this one, eh?” he jokes. Bellamy glowers.

“She’s earned it.”

Emerson clears his throat. “Right, well. I told her you probably wouldn’t see her without your mother, but. She wants to know if you’ll join us.” He shoots a pointed look at Clarke, who glares back at him, which is new. Bellamy’s pretty sure he’s never seen her face do that. “Anyway, we’ll meet you at the prison, then. I imagine you’re probably keen on seeing your mother out from behind bars.”

“You’ve talked enough,” Clarke decides, giving him a mild shove towards the door. “Now leave.”

Once he’s gone, Bellamy turns to her in question, but she shrugs. “He was upsetting you,” she defends.

“I think he upset you,” Bellamy says calmly. He runs a hand over her shoulder blade. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “You won’t have to see him again. We’ll get mom out, and grab O, and leave.”

“What about Marcus?” Clarke asks with an air of indifference that suggests she doesn’t actually care.

“We’ll leave a note,” he says dryly.

“You bitches ready?” Octavia demands from the stairs. She’s dressed in all black, with a pair of combat boots, and war paint across her cheeks. “Let’s go be heroes.”

Clarke heads in alone, which was the plan to begin with, but now Bellamy wishes they’d come up with something else.

“What do you think will happen to me?” she asks, amused. “I’m indestructible.”

“We both know that’s not true,” Bellamy snaps. He regrets it, but can’t bring himself to take it back. He’s feeling nauseas, and wishes he had a bucket.

Clarke lays a firm hand on his shoulder, stroking the skin at the base of his neck. “It will be fine,” she assures him. “I won’t let anything happen to her.”

“Don’t let anything happen to _you_ , either,” he says hotly, and then kisses her before she leaves.

“So you and Clarke?” Octavia chirps from the back. He turns to glare at her.

“Not a fucking word,” he glares. She just grins smugly, saying _I told you so_ , with her eyes.

There’s a lot of gunfire, but that’s to be expected in a prison break. Bellamy can feel himself getting tenser and tenser, the longer the shooting stretches. And then he hears alarms and the shouts of a mob, and he’s finished waiting.

“Break time’s over,” he mutters, sliding out of the Jeep. He keeps hold of Octavia’s elbow—because he’s not about to kid himself thinking she’d wait in the car—as they crouch-run their way to the gates.

She slip in through the hole Clarke made, and stay close to the walls as they slink down the hallways. There’s a lot more damage than he was anticipating—the force of Clarke always catches him off guard. A few guards are lying on the ground, moaning or still, but he doesn’t stop to check any pulses.

There’s still the roar of a crowd, and he realizes why when he glances out a window and sees a wave of orange jumpsuits making a break for it. He grits his teeth in irritation; Clarke was only supposed to spring Aurora, not a bunch of criminals.

They find their mother on the first floor, talking with Emerson and a woman he doesn’t recognize—Diana Sydney, he assumes. Aurora doesn’t look surprised to see her children, and neither do the other two.

“Where’s Clarke?” he asks, searching the room for her familiar blonde curls or the brown of her jacket.

“In the basement,” Aurora says grimly. “With Diana’s Machine, Dante.”

He _knows_ it’s irrational to feel jealous of a Machine, so he focuses instead on worrying. “Let’s go get her,” he decides, and Aurora looks ready to argue, but Octavia stands fiercely at his side, so there’s really no choice in the end.

The basement’s worse off than the rest of the prison, with broken computer monitors dangling from the ceiling, and cords ripped apart blowing steam into the air. The lights are flickering, making it hard to see, but all of that pales in comparison to what’s waiting for them in the center of the room.

It’s Clarke. Her head’s been bashed open, skin falling off half her face. She’s tied to a chair, and _not moving_.

“He took her chip,” Bellamy realizes dumbly, still staring at the hole in her head. He’d just had his hand there, half an hour ago. He’d pressed his lips to her skin.

Octavia lets out a strangled sob, and he knows she’s trying to keep it together for him, but he can’t really care.

Aurora gives a roar and lunges for Diana. “You lying bitch,” she crows. “You’re working with Skynet!”

“I’m not,” Diana says mildly. “And he didn’t take it from her—she gave it to him.” She nods at one of the computer monitors, unbroken but still crooked.

The screen is blinking with a single message, scrolling over and over.

I’M SORRY BELLAMY

“He has her chip,” Bellamy argues. The room begins to glow blue, with strange lightning. He recognizes it, and grips Clarke’s cold shoulder. The orb begins to swallow them.

“Bellamy, no,” Aurora pleads from outside the circle. Octavia is staring worriedly by her side. Diana steps closer to Bellamy and Clarke while Emerson stumbles away in horror.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” the man argues. “I didn’t sign up for time travel!”

“Alright,” Diana says calmly. “Would you pick Charlotte up from school, then?”

“Bellamy, don’t do this,” Aurora pleads. Bellamy glances at his mother and then back to Clarke.

_I do not belong to you. But I am yours. And you are mine._

“He has her chip,” he says helplessly. “He has _her_. Mom—”

Aurora nods sharply. “Go,” she says. “I’ll stay. I’ll stop it.”

“I love you,” Bellamy calls as the air starts to burn. “I love you, O, I’ll—”

The orb bursts into white and devours him.

He wakes on cold pavement at night, naked. He thinks that’s probably what he hates most about time travel. And the hangover.

Diana is there, but not Clarke. He watches as the woman grows clothes out of her skin. He isn’t surprised, not really. She’s clinical enough to be a Machine.

“Who the fuck are you?”

Bellamy turns towards the voice, doing his best to cover himself while also trying to seem stronger than he feels. He doesn’t think it’s working.

A man comes out of the shadows, and it takes Bellamy a moment to recognize him through the grayed hair and wrinkles. “ _Marcus_?”

Marcus stares at him, wry smile in place. “Well, well,” he muses, turning back towards the shadows. “Guess you were right!”

A figure comes out, and Bellamy has to squint to make it out in the darkness. It’s a woman, small and pale, with blonde curls hanging low on her shoulders. He stutters over her name, and goes to reach for her, when he realizes she’s carrying a puppy.

“You’re Bellamy Blake?” she asks, shyly, stroking her pet between its ears. Bellamy stares and tries to steady his breathing. Machines can’t touch dogs.

“Clarke,” he says softly, but she only frowns.

“Who’s Clarke?” she asks. “I’m Harper.”


End file.
